Someone help out please?

Thank you samxiangliu,

I saw this movie at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam (Holland). I must admit that I diddn't really get it, but I did keep thinking about it trying to make more sense of it. Of course, being Dutch, my understanding of the Japanese society is limited. Kurosawa was actually present at the screening of the film, but he did not clarify more than that he wanted to make a movie about a bright future and keeping jellyfish as a pet.
I guess I projected the bright future to directly to Yuji and i saw a guy not being able to make his own desisions and not really wanting any change. At the end of the movie he is on is own so is his future really bright?
I also think that the gang threw me of track as well, I found them clueless. Che Guevara, I think, is now a days a symbol of commerialised ideology. Che as a fashion statement, here i see kids wearing che t-shirts because its cool not knowing what he stands for, is it any different in Japan?

But thank you any way for explaining this movie.

8. Of course the shirts, Che Guevera, who died having his body cut up in pieces. The man was the lieutenant of Fidel Castro, then he spreaded his anticapitalist views all around south america on a motorcycle. One of his biggest advocacies was anti-american economic involvement in south america.

-
-
-
-
-

i don't think he died because his body was cut up in pieces. i thought it was that, while acting as a guerrillero in Bolivia, trying to jumpstart a revolution there similar to the one in Cuba, he was killed. and i'm not sure if he was fidel's lieutenant. and i think his journey through South America in a motorcycle was before the ideas of communism were stablished in his head. i know that some leprosy was involved with the journey, but i don't think he started spreading his ideals yet.

"deja que el mundo te cambie y puedes cambiar al mundo"

2. Know who Che Guevera is - you got that part down, it just doesn't seem that you know too much about him....

Which one would that be? The one that isn't based on feudalism and shogun? The Last Samurai is about what? Consumerism? Communism? The Fight Club?

You are a hoot. I know a few things about Japan. I lived there. I go there for a few weeks almost every year. My wife is Japanese. The only thing you have to know about Japan to BETTER "understand" this lousy movie is that
a) they speak Japanese
b) materialistic, modern societies turn parents into A-holes, which turns kids into either rebels or slackers ... like in all the other materialistic, modern societies.

The ONLY thing this movie is good for is to try to be understood. The characters are a waste of breath. The plot is, well not worth the time.

I'm not so sure about all the capitalism vs. communism, but I think the main point is giving direction to the perceived lackluster youth of today.

One will notice the clear similarity between the glowing jellyfish streaming out into the ocean and the kids following Yuji wearing the blinking headsets. Yuji is as mindless as the jellyfish, but he gives some sort of direction to the gang of listless kids.

Furthermore, at the end of the movie the kids are sitting around doing their usual thing, but once they are reminded of Yuji (by mistaking a passerby for him) they get up and start walking. Again there is no particular direction to their action, but they are doing something rather than nothing as the title "bright future" appears superimposed on them.

Note that this is generally a false perception of the Japanese youth, at least from my experience. There is a counterculture of defying they traditional selfless work ethic but for the most part there is a middle ground of kids working for their own goals rather than sacrificing their lives for a corporation.

It does seem that most of this movie is alot of hand waving at symbolism, but this is also not uncommon in Japanese cinema and animation.

Very thorough analysis. I'm not sure it is fully correct but you are onto something with the Christian analogy. Notice how the light streaming through the blinds makes a giant crucifix in their living room. Mamora is a martyr, in the film and Yuji is his apostle. However, the band of youths kicking trash in their matching Che T-shirts does not indicate a bright future, to me. I actually think that Kurosawa's point is that ideas can lose their meanings once they are appropriated by the masses. So many teens all over the world wear those T-shirts with no idea what it means. Guevera had an idealistic belief in Communism but Communism in Central and South America turn out to be as bad (or worse) than the military totalitarianism it often replaced. To me, the film's point is as a warning to the Japanese that the blind adherence to capitalism will breed this disaffected youth, hungry for ANY new ideas and leads to things like the Sarin gas attacks on the subways. Kurosawa's films usually deal with this concept of an IDEA becoming a contagion that leads to some apocalypse (Cure, Pulse etc.).

the jellyfish is an important choice. it drifts around aimlessly. like unsure, uninterested, uninspired youth. in spite of that it remains a potent and lethal weapon that can be mobilized by one idea. i also think you are going too far with che. che is not a dangerous jellyfish. he is an assimilated revolutionary. i do think those shirts provide a big hint, but i think the movie is looking for new ideas for floundering youth (dying in bolivia doesn't seem that bright to me).

this movie reminds me of no country for old men. a movie about american culture and i don't think a good grasp of japanese culture is required to understand the movie. in both movies youthful ideas remain lethal to older generations. they cannot understand them, (any more than the father can understand his murdering son) try to exterminate and then assimilate them.

that said, i do not think bright future is about atheistic amoral capitalists devouring the security of republican capitalists (think CDOs haha). i think it demonstrates the ease with which youth can be mobilized by one BRIGHT idea.